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Written by Michael Salsbury
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Tuesday, 29 November 2005 |
(Following is something of a literary experiment inspired by Spamusement.com, which takes a subject line from a spam email and draws a cartoon based on it. In the following, I've taken whole or partial spam subject lines and used them for all dialog in the story. That is, anything you see in quotes below is an actual spam subject line or is trimmed out of one that I received during a single day. These are probably going to suck until I get some more practice at it.)
I suppose when you start your day with a couple of scrambled eggs and some canned pork product you can expect to be thinking about that pork product for a while - even if it doesn't repeat on you. This time around, it was definitely repeating on me. I know you probably wish you could ask me "Need medicine?" but you can't. You're not here to ask me.
I said goodbye to my daughter. She had something of a perplexed look on her face. "Are ghosts real?" she asked, eyes twinkling with innocence. I decided to change the subject. I handed her a newspaper and said "Search these foreclosures", then dashed out of the room before she could ask me what a foreclosure was or how to search it.
My wife was waiting for me by the door. I knew something was on her mind. She looked at me quizzically and asked "Is this your Dream Home?" I had to admit that it wasn't. The den was too small, and so was the garage. When I wanted to know why she asked, she admitted she'd found some "affordable ocean view land in Costa Rica". Great. Costa Rica. Nothing like uprooting your entire life and going overseas. No thanks. I kissed her goodbye and stepped outside, shouting back "Dr. Perricone tells Oprah how to lose 15 pounds in 6 weeks!" Perhaps that will give her something to do instead of thinking up moving plans for Costa Rica.
Finally, I was at last at peace within my car. I turned the key. Immediately the radio began blaring one of those annoying commercials. This one promised "Learn to play the guitar in just one weekend!" I turned the radio off. Peace and quiet was what I needed. Fortunately, the drive to the office was brief and uneventful.
The boss met me at the door. "Are you absolutely certain your PCs are not infected?" he demanded. I was in no mood for his crap. "Do you have a testosterone deficiency?" I asked him, tossing a magazine on the table. "This article will help you build muscle." He started thumbing through the magazine while I poured a cup of coffee. The guy was such an idiot. My comtempt for him must have been showing when his boss walked by. Cupping a hand to his mouth and leaning close to me, he asked "Who would you rather work for?" I wondered why he was asking. "I found you a new job," he told me. "Participate and receive chocolate for a year!"
Chocolate AND a chance to get away from my idiot boss? This day was starting to look up already. I guess he thought I was holding out, and added "Participate and get money towards your holiday vacation!" I was stunned. This guy must really want me to work for him!
"Want to borrow $1500 till your next payday?" he begged. It was getting embarrassing. I told him I'd take the job, once he told me what it entailed. He popped open his briefcase, handed me a report, and said that I first needed to "get a digital video recorder from Dish Network"... How odd. How does a DVR play into all this? I went back to my office and pondered on it a bit.
The report he had given me was entitled "The SAD TRUTH about Popular Beverages Consumed Every Day" and was about 50 pages long. I skimmed through it, learning how there's a fringe group that thinks Nutrasweet is responsible for an upsurge in the number of brain tumors, how saccharine causes cancer in laboratory mice if they consume enough, how too much sugar causes obesity and tooth decay, and how caffeine can cause hypertension and other problems. It was enough to make me toss out the soft drink I'd just opened. Who needed to be a fat guy with cancer, no teeth, high blood pressure, and a brain tumor? Not me, buddy. I'd learned my lesson for the day.
I got online and ordered the satellite dish and digital video recorder my new boss expected me to have. It was installed that afternoon. Once it was up and working, I called him to ask what I needed to do next. "Become a Nielsen/NetRatings Family Member" he said, and hung up. Great. Wonder how you do that? In stepped the office "gofer".
"Looking for logistics help?" she asked. I wondered how she knew that. I gave her the task to figure out how I become the ratings person the boss wanted me to be. A few hours later she came back and told me "Kinkade collectors demand Nativity first" as well as a "Thomas Kinkade's Illuminated Holiday Wreath". She assured me that these little "gifts" would ensure my selection into the Nielsen family. Sounded good to me. I handed her the company credit card, asking "Love to shop? Why not get paid at the same time?" That was all I needed to tell her. She was out of the office in a blur.
Since it looked like I had successfully avoided work so far, I walked out to the water cooler where Sue from Payroll was filling up a plastic cup. "We have a check - could be yours" she told me.
"How much? How fast?" I asked.
"Answers are waiting for you," she said, and motioned toward her office. I followed her back. She closed the door, whispered in my ear, saying "Online auctions made me rich." When I asked what that had to do with me, she mumbled "Looking for people to make rich." I asked how she made all her money.
"Personalize a Santa Letter...North pole postmark - includes shipping"
I questioned whether people would really pay for a thing like that. She showed me her last bank statement. I'd never seen so many zeroes. Could Santa Letters really pay off that well? No, they couldn't. There had to be more going on here. It was probably something illegal. I called my friend at the police station. He told me things had been really boring lately, just the usual run of purse snatchings, burglaries, and domestic disputes. It wasn't the fulfilling job he'd expected.
"Begin a rewarding career in law enforcement today," I told him. Then I explained that it looked like my new boss wanted to manipulate the Nielsen ratings and that Sue from Payroll was operating some kind of Internet scam. This seemed to get his attention. "Let us match you with a REAL person!" he told me. We needed someone to play the sucker in one of these scams. He told me to contact one of the guys in the police department's data center for help finding someone to help. "He will put your ad on 4 million web sites."
Sure enough, we found someone. Turns out that Sue's letters were part of some elaborate scam to bilk people with phony insurance policies, debt consolidation, and bogus dating services. My instincts were right. The new boss' story was different, though. He was just a really big fan of Lost and wanted to make sure it didn't get canceled. He was willing to pay me just to watch the show and boost its ratings. He'd even managed to put together a huge online community of fans, and urged "Join the 1,800,000 new members waiting to meet you!" I did, and life has never been the same.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 04 December 2005 )
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